


go save the world (i'll be around)

by niennathegrey



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Battle Couple, F/M, Meet-Cute, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-22 21:17:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23433871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niennathegrey/pseuds/niennathegrey
Summary: I loved you from the very first day.Or: superhero Rey, intrepid reporter Ben Solo, and the beginnings of a beautiful partnership.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 42
Kudos: 81
Collections: Reylo Moodboard Inspiration





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Erulisse17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erulisse17/gifts).



> This was written for the Reylo Writing Den’s Moodboard Inspiration event. Hope you enjoy it, Grace!
> 
> HUGE thanks to Maggie for beta reading, and especially for talking me through the fight scenes (seriously, I would have still been agonizing over them to kingdom come if it weren’t for her). 
> 
> The title and summary are from “Superman” by Taylor Swift.

Ben Solo was not a particularly religious man.

Still, though, he supposed anyone could be forgiven for thinking, _oh, god, no_ when faced with the sight of a bus flying through the air toward him.

(That wasn’t a figure of speech, by the way. The bus was not swerving wildly out of control, or careening down the mean Chandrila streets so fast that it seemed to be flying. No, the bus was, in fact, _actually_ flying through the air, as if tossed away by an ill-mannered, giant child in a fit of pique.)

Ben Solo, hard-hitting reporter for _The Chandrila Gazette_ , froze in place on the sidewalk. His hands clenched around his notebook, pen, and camera, the hard edges of leather and plastic digging into his palms. He had the brief, waggish thought of Tai and Poe putting something like “a workaholic to the last” in his obituary, possibly underneath a picture of him splattered across the concrete still clutching the tools of his trade.

He closed his eyes, waiting for the burst of pain as the bus smacked into him and broke all his bones and rearranged his internal organs—

— and… and it never came.

Ben cautiously cracked one eye back open, only to startle backwards with a sharp, “What the _fuck_?” 

The bus was still in the air, suspended about a foot away from his (generous) nose by some invisible force.

“All right?” asked a British-accented contralto voice somewhere to his left.

Ben turned to look at the speaker and got his second shock of the day.

A slight, feminine figure stood there, head swathed in a cowl made of some thin, dusty gray fabric. Their (her?) upper body was draped in the same fabric, crossing over the chest and wrapping around the arms. One hand clutched a long, sturdy-looking staff; the other was raised, palm out — facing the bus.

 _She_ was holding the bus in the air, Ben realized, … with nothing but her mind, apparently.

A superhero, then. (A vigilante, some would argue was the better term, but Ben was inclined to be more charitable, given that _she’d saved his ass._ )

A telekinetic superhero.

Well, New York _had_ had an abundance of costumed heroes for as long as he could remember. Maybe some of them had decided to move to greener pastures, as it were.

All of this flitted through Ben’s brain in quick succession. But then the woman turned to look at him, and all his thoughts scattered like so many startled birds.

She had a domino mask on, dark lenses surrounded by the same gray material as her costume — but still, Ben jolted when her eyes met his; and he felt his jaw drop open a little.

She seemed to feel it too — as far as he could tell, considering half her face was covered. Her lips were parted, as if in a surprised gasp; and— he couldn’t explain it, but he just _knew_ that behind her mask, her eyes were wide and curious.

Somewhere behind him, someone shrieked, and the masked woman seemed to snap to attention. She lowered her hand, and the bus sank along with it to the asphalt, landing with nary a squeak of wheels.

Ben took a step toward her, his own hand half-raised (to do _what?_ wondered the rapidly-dwindling rational part of his brain). Then he spotted a black blur of movement over her shoulder, and he used his forward momentum to charge toward her, crying, “Look out!”

As she turned to look behind, Ben slammed into her, knocking her onto the pavement. She yelped indignantly, the sound cut short when they tumbled down together—

— just a handspan away from the black-masked, black-armored figure who would have buried his scythe into her back, had she been upright.

Where there was a superhero, there was always a super _villain_. Of course.

“Hey, let me up!” She wriggled underneath him.

Ben swallowed hard and quickly rolled off her, landing on the ground with an inelegant thud. “You okay?”

She huffed a laugh, sounding rather breathless (as well she might, Ben thought a bit ruefully, when all six foot two of him had plowed into her like a college quarterback). “That’s” — she threw up her hand again as Scythe-Man recovered and swung his weapon around for another attempt, and the blade froze in midair, as if it had slammed into an invisible wall — “my line, yeah?”

“Call it my civic duty.” Ben rose to his feet, warily eyeing their assailant. Two more figures, similarly masked and armored, stalked from the shadows of a nearby alley to join him. The woman whipped around as three more ( _seriously,_ _where_ _did they even come from?_ ) arrived behind them, hemming them in like wolves around their prey. “Who are these guys, anyway?”

“The Knights of Ren.” Her grip on her staff tightened, and she slid one foot backward, assuming a fighting stance. “Local gang, last I heard of them, but it looks like they’ve gotten some upgrades.” She turned to look at him over her shoulder. “You should go. I didn’t mean to put you in danger.”

Ben looked around, at the circle of thugs that admitted no exit. “Yeah, that’s not happening.” He stepped backward until his back was flush with hers. “Guess you’re stuck with me.”

“Isn’t that sweet,” sneered one of the Knights, in a deep, electronically distorted rasp. “ _Two_ crazy kids playing hero for the price of one.”

“Must be contagious.” Another one hefted his club. “More fun for us though, eh, boys?”

“Take half each?” the woman asked.

 _You say that like this’ll be easy._ “Good plan.”

The Knights charged.

* * *

On Ben’s eighteenth birthday, Han and Lando had taken him to one of their favorite haunts — a well-appointed speakeasy underneath the Laundromat, run by a hardy old woman half Han’s height — and bought him drinks to celebrate. A particularly belligerent drunk had been insistent about Ben sitting in _his seat_ at the bar. Ben, flushed with pride in his newfound manhood — and no small amount of alcohol — had shot back, “The fuck’s your problem?”

In no time at all, the bar had erupted into chaos. Fists flew. Expletives rang. Chair legs and liquor bottles were smashed over people’s heads and limbs. Han and Lando had laughed heartily, even as they too were swept into the mayhem, throwing and dodging blows with the reckless abandon of men twenty years younger.

This, Ben realized as he ducked underneath the first punch and surged upward to return the blow, wasn’t all that different.

Sure, this time the other guys were out to kill — or at the very least, maim — him, and there was rather more at stake here than his pride. But in principle, at least, this was essentially a glorified bar fight.

It really had been a seminal experience in more ways than one. Of course, Han probably couldn’t have guessed that Ben would one day end up fighting off a supervillain-adjacent gang with some masked woman he didn’t even know. But he imagined his old man would have approved anyway. 

He pivoted on his heel and punched another Knight. Then he staggered and fell to one knee as something blunt and heavy (probably that club, he thought grimly) struck him from behind. The Knight he’d punched returned the blow with interest, sending Ben sprawling flat on his back.

“Bastard,” he muttered.

Ben swept a leg out and kicked the Knight’s feet out from underneath him, dimly aware of a solid, satisfying crunch as he hit the concrete. He flailed around, found the other Knight’s booted ankle, and yanked hard. The other man swore loudly as he went down, and Ben had the wild urge to laugh. He settled for a smirk instead.

His new partner in crime was holding her own rather better than he was, from what he could hear. Her high, fierce shouts of effort were punctuated by lower, pained grunts and growls and the sharp, rhythmic clatter of her staff against Kevlar and steel. Ben tipped his head back and watched her jab her staff into a Knight’s solar plexus as he tried to attack from behind, then flow into a sharp kick at the one before her.

The sound of metal scraping against concrete jerked him back to the matter at hand. The third Knight was approaching, his scythe held high.

 _Oh, hell no._ Ben lunged upwards and tackled the man, sending the scythe clattering away. He rained a flurry of blows on the helmeted head, ignoring how his knuckles split and bled. At last, the man went limp, and Ben huffed a sigh of relief. 

“Hey!” the woman yelled, and Ben felt— _something_ — ghost over his shoulder, as if she had stepped up behind him and pressed through his shirt with her palm. He turned to look, but she was still a few feet away, her back to him and her staff raised as she blocked a blow from a Knight’s enormous, cleaver-like blade.

Also, there was a large, heavy-duty-looking rifle floating in the air near her.

 _Telekinetic, right_ , he reminded himself.

She turned her head just enough to glance at him out of the corner of her eye. “Think you might need this!”

The rifle sailed towards him, and Ben dove to catch it before the Knights could. He overcompensated some and ended up on one knee again, clutching the rifle to his chest in a vice-grip. It was cold and heavy in his hands, and he felt almost gleeful at no longer being unarmed. “Thanks!”

He rose to his feet and fired at the two Knights stalking towards him. The bullets bounced off their chest plates with harmless, mocking pings.

“You didn’t really think that was gonna work, did you?” scoffed the one with the scythe.

Ben scowled. “Worth a shot.” He surged forward and slammed the rifle butt into that one’s gut, bringing his knee up to collide with his chin as he doubled over.

“Hey,” he called, as he swung around to club the other Knight with the rifle, “you want these guys alive or what?”

She swung her staff and cracked it across a Knight’s shoulders. “Preferably, yeah!”

Ben huffed. “Fine.” He twisted back around, smashing the rifle over the downed Knight’s head before he had a chance to recover. Again, he didn’t let up until the other man was swaying under the force of his blows. Then, for good measure, he kicked him into a nearby trash can. The Knight hit it with such force that the lid flew off and rolled across the ground.

In a flash of inspiration, Ben snatched up the lid and bashed the edge into the last Knight’s throat. The thin metal crumpled, and the Knight dropped to the ground with a sickly gurgle.

Ben looked around wildly, his hair flying into his eyes. All three of his opponents sprawled, unmoving, on the ground.

He’d done it.

Ben sighed gustily, tossing the mangled lid away. He was about to drop the rifle too when he heard a distinctly female shout that cut off far too abruptly.

He whipped around and saw the last of the Knights holding the masked woman in an unyielding headlock. Her staff lay abandoned on the ground at their feet, and she struggled in his grasp like a wildcat. She kicked out, clawed and bit at his arm, even slammed the back of her head into his face — but none of it did any good. A chunk of rubble rose, wobbling, into the air and arced toward the Knight’s head — but she must not have been able to concentrate, because it missed him by a good six inches.

Ben ran full tilt at them, getting behind the Knight and bringing the rifle down onto his head. The other man snarled in pain and annoyance, his grip slackening. Ben pulled him off her, and the woman fell to her knees, coughing and gasping for air.

“Careful, lover boy,” the Knight sneered, slamming his head back into Ben’s face.

Ben grunted, spots blooming in his vision.

The Knight twisted around and wrested the rifle out of Ben’s grasp, which had loosened with the force of the blow. “Running around, playing hero — it’s cute and all, but you could get hurt bad. _Real_ bad.” He hefted the rifle almost casually, as if for emphasis.

Ben dashed the blood from his eyes. He glanced pointedly at the downed Knights and shrugged. “I think I’m doing fine so far.”

The Knight barked a laugh. “You got balls, lover boy, I’ll give you that. It’s been fun, so I’ll make this nice and quick.” He raised the rifle with a telltale click, and Ben tensed.

And then, as if to bring this truly surreal afternoon full circle, a bus dropped from the sky, pinning the Knight underneath it.

Ben’s jaw dropped. Slowly, his arm still half-raised defensively, he turned his head and saw the masked woman lowering her own arm as she approached him.

 _Damn._ Han would have whistled appreciatively. Ben, however, just stared in awe.

After a minute or two of trying to restart his brain, during which he was vaguely aware of soundlessly opening and closing his mouth like a particularly gobsmacked goldfish, he croaked, “… I thought you wanted them alive.”

Her head moved a little — arching an eyebrow at him behind her mask and cowl, he was (almost) sure. “He’ll be— okay, not _fine_ , but he’ll live. That armor’s gotta be good for something, after all.”


	2. Chapter 2

An hour or two later, the police cars and the ambulances came to take statements and comfort shell-shocked bystanders, respectively. Ben watched them bustle about from his seat on the steps of a mostly intact brownstone. None of it was new — he’d seen this exact same scene play out multiple times over the years he’d been with the _Gazette_ — but this was probably his first time being the one with the bright orange shock blanket draped over his shoulders, the one with a cup of cheap coffee cradled in his hands.

Someone came up beside him, and he looked up to see the masked woman hovering by his shoulder. Her head was tipped slightly sideways, reminding him of nothing so much as some curious, gray bird. She hesitated for a moment, then perched on the step beside him — well, on his left and an arm’s length away, really, but same difference, right? 

“Are you all right?” she asked again. It was not the brassy, heroic voice of earlier, with the bus. It was low, quiet, almost warm — one bedraggled, weary person to another. 

He gulped at his coffee — quickly, so as to taste it as little as possible — and nodded. “Yeah, I’m okay. … Thanks.” He saw the way she hugged her legs to her chest, the bare skin of her upper arms, the infinitesimal shudders that shook her limbs. In one quick motion, he tugged the blanket off his shoulders and draped it over hers. 

Her lips parted, and she looked about to protest until a breeze stirred the crisp, crinkling leaves at their feet. She promptly drew the blanket tighter around herself and burrowed down into it, drawing a brief, shy smile from Ben.

“And you?” he asked.

She smiled — close-mouthed, polite — and shrugged. “Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t cure.”

Ben frowned. “I don’t imagine being a superhero lends itself very well to getting a good night’s sleep.”

She stared at him, and he— again, he couldn’t explain it; he just _knew_ that behind her mask and cowl, her brow was furrowed. Then she turned away to stare at the blue-and-red-blinking of the sirens instead.

His brain-to-mouth filter had never been in the best working order, sure; but, wow, what _was_ it about this woman that basically shut the damn thing off altogether?

“… Occupational hazard.” Her soft reply pulled him from his self-castigation. “I’ll be fine, really.” She turned back to him. “Hey. You were really brave back there. Very handy in a pinch.” She grinned, a quick flash of teeth that left him slightly winded. “You do this sort of thing often?”

Ben snorted. “Ha, no. I guess all those Batman cartoons I watched as a kid finally came in handy.”

“Well, I think you make an excellent Robin.” She paused, then asked, “What’s your name?”

“Ben. Ben Solo.” He almost continued, “ _Chandrila Gazette_ ,” as was now his reflex whenever he said his full name, but he caught himself at the last second. There was something new and fragile between them — some almost tangible veil that made the rest of the world seem faded and far away, despite the streetlights flickering on and the noise of a crime scene not three feet from them. He sensed (from experience, or was he just learning to read her?) that she would clam up if she knew he was a reporter.

The cold, shrewd part of him that was always on the lookout for a story was strangely muted. Right now, he was just a man who didn’t want a woman to turn away from him. “And yours?” 

“That would be telling.” Something about her accent made the remark seem even drier than usual. “You can call me Kira, though.”

“Okay.” He turned to face her fully and stuck his hand out between them. “Hello, Kira, I’m Ben. It’s nice to meet you.”

Kira laughed, dipping her head briefly. “Hello, Ben. It’s nice to meet you too.”

She reached out and clasped his hand, and—

— and he knew it sounded insane, more suited to the wide-eyed poet he had been as a boy than the take-no-shit journalist he was now, but _god_ , the touch of her hand felt right. _Good_. Like coming home— like finding a gap in himself he hadn’t even realized was there until her hand fit into it perfectly—

(And, oh god, she was looking _right at him_ , and he’d never hated her mask more than he did right now— he wished he could see her eyes, did she feel it too—)

Ben forced himself to break her gaze, hoping he didn’t look as punch-drunk ( _besotted_ , piped his teenage self, who was now apparently running quite wild in his orderly, grown-up brain) as he suddenly felt. He stared down at the pavement and managed a quiet, faltering chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck and thanking any deity listening that his hair hid his ears. 

“Thank you, Ben.” Kira’s voice was as soft as before, only the barest tremble in it the sign of… whatever monumental _thing_ that had just passed between them. “I… I don’t think anyone else would have stuck around to help.”

“You’d do the same for me,” he murmured. “Hell, you _did_ do the same for me.” Then he was seized by a flash of inspiration. Looking back up at her, he said, “But now that you mention it, there is one way you could thank me.” 

“Oh?” The vulnerability of a moment ago was gone. Now she was all suspicion — leaning pointedly away from him, her voice cold and flat, her walls well and truly up.

Ben winced, realizing how he must have sounded and what Kira was probably thinking. He took a deep breath, prayed she wouldn’t bludgeon him to death with her staff or telekinetically throw him into the nearest wall, and blurted out, “Can I see your face?”

A beat of silence— and then she exhaled loudly and shook her head, a wry smile on her lips. “Okay, I wasn’t expecting that. But the answer’s still no. I mean, you’re kind of missing the point of”—she gestured to her head and all its coverings—“all this. The whole secret identity thing, you know.” 

“No, I—” He shook his head. “It’s not about that at all.” He went on — his words spilling out in a rush and his hands tracing jerky shapes in the air between them, all in his haste to make her understand. “You saved my _life_ , okay? And— and maybe it’s weird and I’m sorry, but I don’t want to owe my life to— to some stranger in a mask.”

Ben looked her in the eye. The manic energy of a moment ago had been replaced by a deep, quiet earnestness. “I… I want to know _who_ to thank.” His voice dropped to nearly a whisper. “Please.” 

Kira gasped. Her head dipped, and she stared fixedly at the steps beneath them. A moment later, as if coming to a decision, she lifted her head and turned to him. Slowly, haltingly — her gaze never leaving his — she raised a hand and tapped the corner of her mask. The dark lenses retracted, and—

She had hazel eyes, Ben realized. They fluttered downward for an instant, then back up to his, as if drawn by the same strange gravity that had been between them all day. She met his gaze with her own — tremulous, wary, hopeful.

Ben drew in a sharp breath. _Beautiful_. The word flashed through his brain, and he hoped he hadn’t said it out loud. Now, more than ever, it felt like any breath of sound would break the spell, and she would flee like a startled wild thing.

He could have spent a minute or a day, for all he knew, sitting there, dumbstruck and staring. His hand twitched at his side with the urge to trace her cheek, and it was with great effort that he managed to stop himself. Kira smiled — small and almost timid, the corners of her mouth quivering slightly — and murmured, “… Hi.”

There were any number of things he might have said. In the end, Ben replied with an equally soft, “Hello.”

* * *

**THE CHANDRILA GAZETTE**

**Costumed heroine stops violence by vigilante gang**

Story by Ben O. Solo

[Image description: a carefully detailed portrait, in pencil, of a woman. She wears a gray cowl over her hair and a gray domino mask with dark lenses. Only the lower half of her face is visible. She is not quite smiling, but her lips curve up faintly at the corners.] 

CITY’S NEW DEFENDER? As it was not possible to photograph “Kira,” the above is a representation by a sketch artist for this newspaper.

On Tuesday, September 30, a gang of six masked vigilantes known as the Knights of Ren attacked the city’s financial district. They were apprehended by a masked woman known only as Kira, after a violent confrontation. The damage was mostly limited to vehicles and buildings, but 2 people were injured. There were no fatalities. — STORY ON A3

———

In her tiny studio apartment by the train tracks, Rey Johnson read the morning paper with a giddy smile. She lingered over phrases such as _a capable fighter_ and _an object of admiration— or perhaps devotion_ , chalking the butterflies in her stomach up to the thrill of doing good and being recognized for it, of having her name (so to speak, of course) up in lights and on the front page.

(And so they were — but the slow, spreading warmth she’d felt when she’d seen how finely, painstakingly detailed her portrait was, even to the lock of hair that had slipped free from her cowl and curled against her cheek? That, perhaps, was something else altogether.)

**_To be continued…_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Tumblr: [niennathegrey](https://niennathegrey.tumblr.com/)


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